The Arkansas State Medical Board chairman targeted in a February 2009 bombing outside his West Memphis home took the stand Wednesday in U.S. District Court as prosecutors closed out their case against accused attack planner Dr. Randeep Mann.
Dr. Trent Pierce testified that he shook his finger in frustration while admonishing Mann in 2003 after the Russellville physician came in front of the board on charges including overprescribing controlled substances.
The board ultimately took Mann's license to prescribe controlled substances away for one year after finding him in violation of lesser charges.
That was the first negative encounter between Mann and the board in a series of problems that prosecutors have said are the motive behind the bombing.
In his testimony, Pierce said he had concerns because anywhere from three to 10 of Mann's patients had died from overdoses when Mann first came before the board in 2003. He said he confronted him afterward and spoke of his concerns.
"I was frustrated that Dr. Mann had no recognition of the inappropriate manner he was prescribing medications," Pierce said. "He had no insight, he had no acceptance that he had inappropriately prescribed medications ... that led to the harm of those individuals."
In a subsequent 2006 disciplinary hearing, Mann and the board reached an agreement over similar charges that Mann would keep his medical license but surrender his permit to prescribe controlled substances and admit overprescribing medication.
Pierce testified he believed the permit revocation was permit and that he was "not necessarily the kindest individual to Dr. Mann" when he appeared before the board in August 2007 seeking to have it reinstated.
"Sometimes the board chairman has to be the tough parent," Pierce said, explaining he told Mann he "need not come back and ask for (the permit) in the foreseeable future."
Pierce later described his recollection the morning of the bombing.
He said he recalled saying goodbye to his wife as he left the house for work but then little else before waking up in a Memphis hospital weeks later.
"I have a vague recollection of falling backwards," Pierce said of the explosion, "and then sitting up in a kind of Indian-style manner. But it's just a vague recollection."
The blast blinded Pierce in one eye and caused serious problems in the other, scarred his face, fractured his arm and leg, pierced his abdomen, took his sense of smell and damaged his hearing.
"I am," Pierce at one point began, pausing for a moment, "here because of god's grace and goodness. That goodness and love I think was channeled through emergency personnel and physicians in West Memphis and physicians that provided care for me at the Med (in Memphis). I should be dead."
Pierce testified that the injuries have slowed him down considerably from his old "workaholic" ways, but that they increased his compassion and understanding when dealing with patients. And he said he is able to be an effective physician.
"I still do a very good job," he said.
The prosecution rested its case after Pierce's testimony. Defense arguments begin at 10 a.m. Friday.